WOMAN”S INFLUENCE
By MAGNOLIA
When quite a youth, I took my first parting kiss of my fond mother, and in company with a young friend and schoolmate started from my native mountains, for the University of Virginia to finish our education, My young friend M was a teetotaler, and remarkable for the sternness with which he refused wine on all occasions.
After two years, we returned home, and my chum began paying his addresses to a young lady of fortune, who was at once beautiful and accomplished, always affable, and the life of every circle in which she moved. More fortunate than many who had preceded him, he woed and won. They were engaged and both looked forward with high anticipations of the future. To the time—but a few months distant, when they would be united in the holy bonds of matrimony; and I thought if ever there was a match made up in heaven, that was one.
One night at a ball, a lady asked M—to take a glass of wine with her, which he politely refused, stating that he never drank. When Miss E—his affianced, came forward and said, “Let me try my hand on him.” He refused as before, but she continued to insist until she got him to drink a glass of wine.
His resolution once broken he had to take a glass with another lady and still another, until that night for the first time in his life he found himself under the influence of intoxication. The next day he had to take another glass to taper off one, and several times after that her was slight intoxicated/ This coming to the ears of the young lady’s father, who though a wine bibber he despised drunkenness he informed M—that any farther attentions to his daughter would be in vain. The disappointment to M—was a severe one. He soon left his native home to drown his sorrows amid the wild and exciting scenes of the far West, and I went to a distant part of the State to practice my profession. The young lady’s father being exposed to the raids of the enemy, moved to Florida early in 1862. Nor long after, duty call me to the same State, where I occasionally met the young lady, but never said anything to her about poor M--.
One night I met her at one of a series of balls given to the officers of Finnegan’s Brigade, after their brilliant victory near Lake City, in the winter of 864.
She was exquisitely dressed, and whilst dancing with a gaily attired young officer of the army, I must say I thought she was happy. Music and dancing were going on at a lively rate when an unearthly scream was heard in the hall. The music hushed, the dancing ceased, and at the same moment the door was torn from its hinges, and a raving maniac sprang into the room, crying “Oh God, oh God! Save me from the demons that purse me.” There he stood, with his grey hair disheveled, his cheeks furrowed, and his eyes blood-shotten, producing a a most horrid aspect. At length his physical strength gave way, and he sank to the floor, where he trembled like an aspen leaf.
The crowd soon formed a circle around him, and s strong man raised him up and turned him slowly around. The young lady in the meantime had gained the advantage of my arm for she was a distant relation of mine, very distant however. When his fame came towards us oh, horrible to relate, there stood my former schoolmate. I felt the young lady’s head fall on my shoulder, and I felt the hot tears drop on my hand, and I heard her faintly say, “Take me to my seat, I’ll faint, I’ll die. I led her to the sofa, and M--was taken out of the room.
Two day later, I followed my old schoolmate to the grave; I heard the clods rumble as they fell on his coffin, and I heard his aged broken hearted parents mourn for their only son. His bones are now mouldering among the Orange groves of Florida and the daisies wave over his grave.
The young lady became a confirmed maniac, and is—if living—still an inmate of one the Lunatic Asylum’s of the State, and her parents have both gone down—broken-hearted to the Tomb.
Young lady, be cautious how you place temptation before your young gentlemen acquaintances, lest you may some day have to mourn over the ruin of one to whose lips you once jestingly pressed the fatal cup. Yours is a responsible position in society, and your influence is unbounded if you will exert it in the proper manner; and to you must society look, in a great measure, to reform the morals of its young men.
Title: WOMAN'S INFLUENCE
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Media: Newspaper article, glued to the Ledger of Captain W. B. Blair
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